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Post by Daos on Jul 10, 2019 13:21:45 GMT -8
Hey, I finally finished the podcast. I'll probably try episode 19 next, unless the new one drops before then. Here are my thoughts: Dwarven Deities - So originally, my campaign had a whole slew of gods. In fact, each race had its own pantheon, and that included the dwarves (but not humans, who were allowed to worship any deity they wanted). They were, for the most part, very cookie cutter and generic. There was Kollak, God of Metalcrafts; Iselbacher, Goddess of Time; Frenor, God of Trade; and Ratak, God of Greed and Gold. Kollak, of course, was the patron deity. Iselbacher was his consort. And Frenor and Ratak were his younger brothers. I later simplified religion in my setting, reducing the number of gods to five total (four really, as one wants nothing to do with the mortal world). Part of this was simplicity, but also I wanted to move away from racial gods. I felt like religion should be a personal choice, one based on a person's own beliefs and ideals, not on the circumstances of their birth or their career. Because too often, when a player chose a faith for their character, little to no thought was put into it. You're a mage? You worship the god of magic. You're an elf? You worship the god of elves. (Prior to this, players always just chose whichever god gave them access to the healing sphere, which is why I did away with specialty priests and just let every cleric heal instead. ) Complete Book of Dwarves - I've used a few kits from this book in the past, including Clansdwarf, Sharpshooter, and Trader. And, fun fact, one of the recruitable henchmen in my Gontoria game is a Champion, although she hasn't been introduced just yet. Crafted Dwarven Items - I don't really have anything to add on this segment. Playing a dwarf - I rarely get to be a player, but I have a few dwarf PCs. They are Gimak Rockcrusher (Fighter), Sierra Bullring (Fighter), Barune Golhertt (Cleric), Terra Bullring (Thief), and Rakkit (Fighter/Thief). None of them have ever made it past level 1. (Unless I run them as NPCs, then they have done pretty well.) Gimak is usually a good guy, noble and loyal, and pretty worldly so he doesn't have that typical dwarven prejudice. Usually he's a merchant of some kind, or possibly a craftsman (or both), and normally from a big city (Baldur's Gate, when he's in FR, Palanthas in Dragonlance). Sierra and Terra are sisters; the former stern, serious and grim and the latter light-hearted, flirty, and impish. They're usually sailors or privateers and both tend to prefer the crossbow or firearms if available. Barune is always a cleric of the god of peace, love, mercy or some equivalent (Mishakal in Dragonlance, Ilmater in FR or Zadol in Greyhawk). His backstory is usually he was a violent murderer, who has killed dozens or more, was caught and locked up, and then while in prison found his god, and became a man of peace. His whole roleplaying gimmick is that he struggles constantly with his urge to kill. It's often amusing, as people figure he's a pushover based on his deity, and then are greatly surprised when he starts throttling them when they piss him off. Rakkit is a con-artist, always trying to peddle inferior goods to whoever he can sucker into paying for them. (His name is a pun...he runs quite a...racket.) He's usually a Duergar or similar, although I have played him as a hill dwarf before, too. Mostly I play him for comic relief, as he's always on the run from someone he's hoodwinked, and relies on his fellow party members to protect him from the consequences of his ill-conceived shenanigans. And I guess that about covers it. Looking forward to the elf episode!
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Post by GreyWolfVT on Jul 10, 2019 15:57:48 GMT -8
I love the feedback Daos. Glad you finished it. I'm not sure when the Elf episode is going live I believe Mike has been really busy with work lately and that has put him back on editing and putting episodes out. At this point we have Elves and Half-Orcs recorded just not entirely edited or live.
Honestly on the whole deity thing I've rethought my "world" that I am still way back in the starting stages of creating and I'm just going to go with Norse gods so not really a specific one for each race or anything as large as FR has. I've always personally liked the whole Norse religion mixed with the greek gods and egyptian gods. I could really create a crazy religion mash up in a world. But anyway I'll see about getting more information on how soon Elves will be live. Halflings is the next topic in 2 weeks that we will record.
Also I'm still open to take any questions and get them into the outline for the halfling episode if anyone has any.
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Post by Daos on Jul 10, 2019 16:17:32 GMT -8
A Norse world would be cool, especially if you dove deep into the lore. I once worked on a Greek world, but never finished it. Replaced all the races with Greek counterparts, so playable races were satyrs, centaurs, minotaurs, nymphs, mini-cyclopes and so forth, wrote up stats for all the Greek gods and their clerics, and even worked on new kits for every class. Wow, that was like seven years ago. I just now remembered all that...I wonder if I should ever re-visit that idea. I was just super into Greek mythology back in my youth.
Can't really think of any halfling questions. But I'll let you know if anything comes to me.
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Post by GreyWolfVT on Jul 12, 2019 6:18:08 GMT -8
I did share all your feedback with the other two DM's on the podcast Daos. Saul said that was a very comprehensive reply/amount of feedback. It was cool to have someone actually answer us back from a chapter/recording.
As for my own homebrew world I am still very much in the starting phases of creating information and so forth nowhere near the condition you have your world/realm figured out to be Daos.
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Post by Daos on Jul 12, 2019 12:13:35 GMT -8
Happy to help. I look forward to the next episode.
And yeah, I know the feeling. I've spent a couple of decades working on my world, and I'm always tinkering it, rebooting it, and adding to it. I suspect it will never be 'done.'
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Post by GreyWolfVT on Jul 12, 2019 15:04:16 GMT -8
Happy to help. I look forward to the next episode. And yeah, I know the feeling. I've spent a couple of decades working on my world, and I'm always tinkering it, rebooting it, and adding to it. I suspect it will never be 'done.' Technically in D&D is anything ever really "Done" I mean heck even official stuff grows and changes as time goes on nothing is really ever completed so long as others take up the mantle and expand and alter it. Elf episode should go up tonight Dm Mike said 5pm and he is in Michigan so I haven't looked but it should be live tonight. Actually yes Elf episode is up: www.podomatic.com/podcasts/libramofthedm/episodes/2019-07-12T14_00_00-07_00
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Post by Daos on Jul 13, 2019 12:39:19 GMT -8
So, funny story. I went out to do my exercises yesterday, and checked to see if the elf episode was up yet. It wasn't, so I started episode 19 instead. By the time I finished my workout, the elf episode was out. Welp, guess it was just bad timing on my part. So I'll probably finish up episode 19 before moving on to 21.
Anyway, here are my thoughts of the first 20 minutes of episode 19:
Why pay a toll to enter a town? - Come to think of it, I'm not sure if I've ever had the party pay a toll for entering a town. Not unless I was trying to communicate something about the town (that they are very strict, or something like that). I usually just forget to even include something like that. Maybe I should make a better effort to remember such things.
Same world or new worlds for each gaming group? - Nowadays, I run multiple games and therefore have multiple groups (although there is a lot of crossover between them), but back when I only ran one game, I would usually change the setting every 3 campaigns or so. I have a number of different continents in my setting, and we'd switch between them. So I would run three campaigns in Octhania, then run three campaigns in Renosia, and so on. I don't think this was intentional, it just sort of worked out that way. By the third campaign, my players would start getting antsy to try something new, so we'd switch to another continent.
Where to get ideas - Oh, yeah, I steal from everywhere under the sun. I usually try and find more obscure stuff for ideas, so it's not too obvious. Plots, locations, characters, magic items, you name it. Sometimes when I have a specific idea I want to do for a campaign, I'll even watch some movies or television or read some books with the same idea, for inspiration. For instance, when Octhania was still in the design stage, I read Treasure Island, played Sid Meier's Pirates, watched Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.
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Post by Daos on Jul 14, 2019 9:31:38 GMT -8
Part two of episode 19: Building around character levels - I have so much difficulty with this. I am always underestimating the party in any game, and every time I try and throw a big challenge at them, they blaze past it in three rounds. You'd think after all these years I'd be better at it. But every party is different, and is constantly changing (leveling up, adding and removing members, etc.). It makes me thankful for 5E's CR system, as at least it offers a template of some kind to follow. Placing monsters - I generally don't use many dungeons anymore these days, because they slow the pace down to a glacial crawl in a pbp format. When I do use dungeons, they're always very small (10 rooms or less). The exception are the modules I run, which tend to be 70% (or more) dungeon, which is why it takes years to get through them. But anyway, when I do make dungeons, I also try and keep monster ecology in mind, as well. What do they eat? Where do they sleep? What do they do all day? There was this guy at this other site who complained endlessly about 5E's Dungeon of the Mad Mage because, among other things, there was a broom closet in there. For holding brooms. This infuriated him, because he felt it was pointless and stupid, and every single room should be specifically keyed toward challenging the party with dangerous monsters and traps. And all I could do was laugh. "Where are they supposed to keep their brooms then?" I'd ask. Spellcasting Monsters - I tend to keep track of what spells an enemy can cast beforehand, rather than free-casting. (I assume 'free-casting' means just deciding which spells they have memorized on the fly?) I do the same with ally NPCs, as well. Resources for Adventure building - I admit, for my campaigns, I sometimes will steal an entire dungeon or town from a module or a videogame wholesale, change some names, and stick it into my game. It can save a lot of time. Once, I took a low-level dungeon from Skyrim of all places, using the map, enemy and item placements and everything, just changed the names so it fit into my world. It was for a solo quest, and the player later congratulated me on such a well designed dungeon. I was too embarrassed to correct him.
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Post by Daos on Jul 16, 2019 12:16:01 GMT -8
Part three of episode 19: Placing Magical Items - Sometimes I choose specific items, but most of the time I just roll randomly. Which is why most of my parties tend to not have very many magical items, because I have terrible luck at rolls. True story, I once made an encounter with two green dragons (a mated pair). I had to roll for their horde three times, because the first time I came up with nothing (literally, nothing), the second time I came up with just a few hundred copper pieces and nothing else, and the third time I finally managed to get a decent hoard. Even when I do get lucky enough to roll up some good stuff, it's surprising how often the party misses them entirely. (You'd be surprised how often my players don't even think to loot bodies.) Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide - I actually think I have a PDF of this floating around somewhere, but I'm not sure I've ever really looked at it. Mostly it was stuff I already knew, having learned the hard way. Sure would have come in handy when I was first starting, though, I'm sure! I made so many mistakes in the beginning, and my first players (my best friends at the time), were quick to take advantage of my lack of experience. Where to place traps and why? - Something regarding traps that I didn't hear come up is also to consider their age. If it's a really old dungeon, like hundreds or even thousands of years, I like to make some of the traps not work, due to decay. It sort of depends on what kind of trap it is. Magical traps are pretty much eternal, but something made with wood isn't likely to last very long (like a trap that causes sharp wooden sticks to just out of a wall if you step on a floor panel, for instance). Of course, that's assuming the traps were made by the original occupants. If a new group comes in and sets up their own traps, that's another story. Puzzles - Aha, I actually hate puzzles. Don't like them as a player, don't like them as a DM. I don't even like them in video games. They are either way too easy, making them pointless, or way too hard, making them annoying. What's more, as was brought up in the podcast, they are really designed to challenge the players instead of the characters, which makes them somewhat of a meta-obstacle. I almost never use puzzles in my games, and when I do, it's always for something optional. How [players] affect creating an Adventure - For my campaigns, I usually try and build storylines around my player's backstories and in-game actions. However, that's not always easy. I usually ask my players to come up with a list of goals they want to accomplish. But some of them don't. Or they do, but they are very vague. Or they never make any effort to actually try and accomplish their goals. They might decide they want to find the six-fingered man who killed their father, and avenge his death, but never make any effort to find the guy, and just sort of hope they'll run into him coincidentally on the course of the adventure. I actually ran into this problem in a game I ran on another site. I had one player who gave her character any sort of backstory hooks or goals. Everyone else in the game had backstories that basically amounted to, "One day I decided to become an adventurer." And their goals were basically, "Go on adventures." So the entire game was basically just working on that one player's goals. Nobody else had any sort of investment in the world. They had no roots, no connections. They sprang fully formed 'from a land far away' or their hometown was burned down and everyone they knew died, or whatever. So not only did the whole campaign center on that one single PC, but once we finished with her goals, and mined her backstory for every plot point we could...well, that was it. I went ahead and ended the game, because there was no further reason for the group to continue staying together. I mean, I've run into players like that before, the ones who seem to just fade away into the ethereal plane until a fight breaks out, then they manifest, fight, and fade away again afterward. But it was weird that 4/5ths of the entire party was like that. I remember one player in particular, I offered a plot hook to learn more about her past (she was orphaned and knew nothing of her heritage), and she actually got a bit offended by the very idea. Like, how dare I offer an opportunity to flesh out her character? Now, modules are another story. Because they are a linear storyline, pre-written before the players even roll up their characters, I usually don't even bother asking for a detailed backstory beyond "One day I decided to become an adventurer." In the rare instances players do offer more than that, though, I do sometimes try to find a way to work it into the story when I can. But sometimes it just doesn't mesh at all with what the module's story is. ================= Anyway, now I'm ready to move on to the elf episode. However, I won't be exercising any time soon, because I've come down with a case of acute bronchitis. But on the other hand, I won't be doing much else but lying in bed for awhile, so may as well listen to the episode then.
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Post by GreyWolfVT on Jul 16, 2019 15:18:45 GMT -8
I love the feedback and as always you provide a great amount of detail and I love it. I'll continue to share with the other two and keep it coming Daos.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Jul 17, 2019 4:42:08 GMT -8
That reminds me: right now, I’m in an IRL game run by my brother’s friend. (Age 10) Since it’s his first time running, I didn’t do anything too complex. I’m a Great Old One Warlock named squidbert. His personality is that he worships Cthulhu and his backstory is that he was raised by squid.
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Post by GreyWolfVT on Jul 17, 2019 7:40:45 GMT -8
I love that Gravity. Worshiper of Cthulhu and a fitting name too.
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Post by Daos on Jul 17, 2019 14:09:01 GMT -8
Don't know how much of it really qualifies as feedback, as much as rambling, but I'm glad you enjoy it. Speaking of rambling, I am quite ill at this point, so forgive me if I seem even less coherent than normal. I made some good headway into episode 21 yesterday while sick: Losing a skill that cost CP - I've never used Skills and Powers before, and don't have any real idea how it all works, so I can't really comment on this one. Examples of Puzzles/Riddles - Like I said before, I don't really use puzzles. But if I did, and was feeling particular trollish, I'd probably do this: Favorite Houserules - Boy, I have so many as it is and am always coming up with new ones. I think doing away with level limits was probably my first one ever, so maybe we can list that as my favorite. Subraces of Elves - Originally, my setting used a number of elf subraces. There were the Azelyth (High or Light Elves), the Griginori (Grey Elves), Elonnori (Wild Elves), and the Mai'annori (Dark Elves or Drow). I think I also had Avariel and Sea Elves, but they weren't playable. Honestly, I never thought much of sea elves in general. I figured water genasi did a better job at filling their niche, as they could actually live on the land and also be part elf, as well. When I rebooted the setting recently, I stripped out all the subraces, including elves, so now there are only basically high elves. But like with the dwarves, I have been reconsidering this and bringing them back at some point. But probably not sea elves. Dark Elves - My Drow were played pretty similarly to what you'd find in Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, but there were some differences. The two major ones were that first, I got rid of the whole straw matriarchy thing. Male and female Drow are more or less equal. Second, they had a strict caste system that they were usually born into, and each caste was named from an animal. They were Rat (merchants, laborers), Serpent (assassins, thieves, rogues), Spider (wizards), Bat (priests), Scorpion (warriors) and Dragon (nobles). Also, while everyone called them 'drow' as a nickname, their official name were the Mai'annori, which translated from elvish meant, "Children of Death."
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Post by Daos on Jul 18, 2019 13:22:53 GMT -8
Okay, time for the second half of episode 21. Elven Magic - I've never really portrayed elven magic as any different from any other kind of magic. In my setting, elves basically invented magic and all the other races learned it from them or reversed-engineered it from them. So since elves were the first, they certainly do have some secrets they keep to themselves. But otherwise, technically all arcane magic is elven magic.
Complete Book of Elves - To be honest, I felt like this book went a bit too far in making elves feel rather alien. Especially the whole 'don't sleep' thing. So I wind up ignoring a lot of it. But I do make use of the kits. I'm using the Infiltrator in my Gontoria campaign and the Windrider in my Past Glory campaign. One of my players in Accursed Tower is using the Bladesinger. I've heard it's super OP, so I let him use it because I wanted to see it for myself. But so far, it hasn't really lived up to its reputation. Maybe he needs to gain a few levels before it kicks in properly.
Speaking of, not sure if any of you are aware, but back when Torment: Tides of Numenera (the spiritual successor of Planescape Torment) was being kickstarted, their stretch goal of $2.5 million was to make Colin McComb (who wrote the Book of Elves) 'apologize' for it. The rather amusing video is here:
Also, wow, he was only 22 when he wrote it? That's bonkers.
Avariel - As I said before, the Avariel used to be part of my world (as NPCs), then they weren't. And I'm thinking of bringing them back in some form or another. But overall, I haven't had much use of them.
Elven Chainmail - Something I'm surprised nobody brought up is that elven chainmail is also the only armor in the game that can be worn and still allow casting arcane spells. It's pretty valuable to fighter/mages, as a result. Anyway, elven chainmail has always been pretty rare in my games, as not that many people play elves, now that I think about it.
Elvish Bow - I'm not sure if I've ever had one of these in my games. At least, not in recent memory.
Playing an Elf - Going through my old character sheets, I am somewhat surprised to learn I have only ever had one elf PC ever. He is a ranger named Arvin Goldstorm, who never made it past level 1. He is also my only ranger character. And I think I've mentioned before, I've never played a druid. So I guess I'm just not into outdoorsy characters? I've had plenty of elven NPCs in my games, though (currently I have Liala Lavallen in Gontoria and Sorrith and Lalora Starshine in Past Glory, and Drizzt Do'Urden himself cameoed in Accursed Tower). And I've run several half-elf PCs, but for some reason I was never really drawn to the elves as a PC race.
Anyway, once I am feeling a bit better, I'll probably move on to the Druid episode next.
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Post by GreyWolfVT on Jul 18, 2019 15:20:41 GMT -8
Oddly enough a lot of my old FTF D&D characters are human or half-elf. I didn't really start playing almost exclusively Dwarves and Gnomes until my 20's. So basically first 10 years of D&D was all human and half-elf characters. Granted of those my favorite is my Neutral Evil Rogue Half-Elf. The very helpful one I mentioned that was cutting off extremities of "friends" to "help" with cursed items or in retaliation for someone mouthing off about how he helped. He however is not the highest level character I have had from back then. Highest level I had back then was level 8 Human Fighter that accidentally was made immortal. He can breathe underwater now.
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